


Those Left Behind

by navaan



Category: DC Comics: Bombshells, DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene, POV Female Character, Pining, Reminiscing, World War II, Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:35:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5503205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate goes off to war and the people left behind find something is missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctorcakeray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorcakeray/gifts).



Maggie had been head over heels in love with Kate from the moment she first saw her, as she walked out of a bar in a sleek violet dress, her long red hair cascading over her back and shoulders like she was some exquisite doll, some princess from the old times stepping right out of a fairy tale and laughing at the world. The true Kate Kane, Maggie had discovered soon after, was much more real, no less fascinating - and still the kind of woman that lived in stories; the kind of stories criminals whispered about in fear, the kind of stories that got told in cheap pulps and ridiculed as make-believe.

But that was her life.

Kate Kane was not just a rich society girl, not just someone who had inherited a fortune and a company. Only the people closest to her knew even half of who she was: A woman who knew exactly what she wanted, a pilot, an adventurer, a soldier and a survivor. The world would never even get to know the half of it.

The Kate Kane she met that first day with her red lipstick and her easy laughter, the deceptively soft smile and the alluring eyelashes, had not prepared her for the whirlwind she’d then discovered behind her easy, likable facade.

“Bat-Woman?” Maggie had asked with a raised eyebrow the first time she had come face to face with her in a dark alley where she, dressed in her black baseball uniform with the red bat plastered across her chest and adorning her cap and shoes, had been busy beating the crap out of the gang Maggie had been following all day. “Really?” 

Kate had given her a long and hard look then and shrugged. “We all wear our masks, detective, don’t we?”

It had been love at first sight for her, but realizing how many layers there were to the true Kate Kane - the princess, the war veteran, the vigilante - it turned love into something burning, something Maggie knew would never let her go.

In the beginning it didn’t even matter that Kate came with baggage. She was perfect and to _have_ her was worth anything. Baggage was nothing.

There were pictures of past lovers, of adventures Maggie would never be part of, propped up and hanging all across the apartment like a memento of a better and well missed life. It was wearing Kate down that life felt much more restrictive to her now than it had ever before and Maggie who knew that she herself would never have gotten as far if not for the war, tried to make up for it and sooth her. “You could join me in the field. Women can go far today. Look at me.”

Kate laughed. “Can you imagine the scandal? The board will never stand for it. Kate Kane joining the police force. No, no, Maggie. This is a mask I must keep wearing. Perhaps Bette can shake it when she’s old enough.”

She leaned over towards her and kissed her, not soft and sweet, but demanding, her tongue slipping in and asking Maggie for a duel between the sheets. Kate could be terribly controlled; she could be a spitfire. In bed she was hot enough to burn.

Maggie loved the way their bodies slid together in passion, how she could tangle her hands in Kate’s hair while she was kissing her way down her body, how it felt to put her lips against her inner thigh, how she could make Kate come undone just by slipping a leg between hers and moving against her wet heat until she begged for more. Passion was edged into all parts of Kate, a fire so hot and burning that it would never be contained.

It was her nature. And Maggie had come to accept it even when it made her uneasy and sad.

Maggie knew she had memories to compete against, ghost that followed Kate through life every single day. She knew baseball and her vigilante life were the only ways for her Kate to not lose herself in the boredom that was her current life in Gotham City, in the guilt that was survival. So when Amanda Waller finally presented Kate with the chance to fight in another war, Maggie knew she would not, could not hold her back. The fighter need to be out in the field.

Knowing it did not stop her from crying into her pillow at night for a week after Kate left her.

* * *

“You know you don’t have to do this alone?” Maggie asked Bette when the girl appeared at the apartment, blood covering the skirt of her uniform from a knife wound. “I’m here.”

Bette looked at her sadly.

They both knew who she was really talking to here, and that person was a long way away fighting among the “Bombshells” that had only occasionally been mentioned in the media. 

She wanted the chance to tell these very words to her far away lover, but all of Kate's letters arrived without a return address.

* * *

It was the most significant push against the Owl gang to date and Maggie knew she could be proud of herself. This had mostly been her own work, putting the clues together, interrogating the right people, making the right calls. Gotham was growing more criminals every day or so it seemed. With so many young respectable men away to fight some of the left overs just thought they’d have an easier game to play.

But there were always good people who were ready to do what had to be done. Many of them women, who picked up where their husbands had left of before signing up.

One of her colleagues sneered as she light her cigarette and then stage whispered at another male officer: “She would not even be on the force if it weren’t for this bloody war.”

She grinned to herself. It was true, of course, but nothing she felt any misgivings about. Like everyone else she took the opportunities that presented itself and made the best of it. Some men would always hate her for that. Some women too.

But what did they know about the price she had to pay, lying awake every night wondering if the war that gave her this chance had already killed the love of her life?

Maggie had no qualms at all about calling Cobblepot himself in for questioning that evening. This was the kind of cops and robbers game she’d always dreamed about.

“A job well done,” Commissioner Gordon told her when they survey the gang members in their cells. “And one mob war averted.”

“Cobblepot will not forget this,” she said and grinned. “The next gang war is just around the corner, sir.”

“Isn’t it always?” He amiably patted her on the shoulder. “With the Bat-Woman away we do have a lot more work on our hands. You were right. She was a bigger help than I’d been aware.”

“I know, sir.”

“Still it’s people like you who make the true difference. Brave new world.” The gray haired Commissioner smiled and offered her a light and they both enjoyed their smoke in silence, standing on the rooftop of the police department and watching as night settled over their city. She’d not trade this place for anywhere else, did not want to go back to Metropolis. Gotham was where she belonged now. 

But something was missing.

And she was painfully aware of what it was.

The city would get by without her, if enough people stepped up and fought back. But Maggie needed Bat-Woman to come back to her.

* * *

Another letter arrived and when she opened it a picture fell out of the envelope. Kate had her arm around a younger girl's shoulders. She felt a desperate spike of fear go through her and she skimmed the letter until she found the words “Can we adopt her?” and then dared to go back and read the whole thing properly from the beginning.

A knock on the door pulled her away. Bette stood in the hallway looking serious, but unhurt, wearing civilian clothes for once. “I’m turning eighteen tomorrow,” she said and then her gaze fell on the letter and the photograph lying on the side table.

Momentarily she looked sad, before it passed and she asked: “A new sidekick?”

“Perhaps,” Maggie admitted. “Perhaps not. It doesn’t matter Bette. She knew you were old enough to be your own hero now.”

“She did?” Bette asked and smiled. The way her eyes were focusing on something far away told Maggie she was remembering Kate. “She told me to take care of her city.”

“And you are. We both are. So when she comes back we can all finally settle down.” She grinned.

“Yeah, sure.” Bette laughed. Then she stopped, remembering why she had come in the first place. “I’m turning eighteen. I’ll take over my share in the company.”

Kate would have been so proud. Maggie impulsively hugged Bette close and Bette held onto her like for dear life. “I’ll need all the help I can get.”

“Oh, you’ll have it.”

Bette chuckled. “I’m not alone anymore. You’ll hear about it, detective.”

“Bat-Girls,” she said slowly. “I already heard. Kate would be so proud.”

“I wish she was here.”

Her throat constricted. “So do I, Bette. But she’ll come back. She’s too stubborn to die in a stupid war.”

They laughed together, not letting go of the other, both of them glad that someone was around who truly understood that Gotham was only half a place without Kate Kane in it.

 _She’ll be back_ , Maggie told herself. _And until then I'll miss her. But I’ll be damned if I let this city go to shambles in her absence. She’d be so mad at me. I'd be mad at me._

“Do you remember how she fell through the roof of the gallery hall?” Bette asked with a laugh.

“Or how she nearly brought down the clock tower?” Maggie countered.

She had all these fond memories of shared adventures, too, remembered how she had kissed Kate for the first time beneath that old bridge in the dark, her heart thumping faster, when Kate had touched her.

She had her own memories of the past to hold on to.

And she would until her beautiful woman got home and everything would be alright.


End file.
